The present invention relates devices and methods for administering, dispensing or delivering substances, and to such devices and methods used in the medical field. More particularly it relates to catheters, infusion devices and the like, including a catheter head for therapeutic or pharmaceutical uses. The catheter head can be part of an infusion set, or it can form an infusion set in combination with a catheter and/or one or more other fluid-conveying elements or components.
A catheter head, as is known from DE 198 21 723 C, for example, is made up of a base body which can be positioned on organic tissue, for example on human skin, and of a connecting body via which a catheter, serving for delivery of fluid, is connected to the base body. Protruding from an underside of the base body, or laterally therefrom, there is a cannula which is inserted into the tissue and is fixed in the inserted state by the positioning of the base body on the tissue. The base body serves as a connector for the cannula. A septum is formed in a housing of the base body in order to seal off the cannula hermetically from the outside. The connecting body comprises a connecting needle which is connected, via an internal fluid channel of the connecting body, to the catheter or to other fluid-conveying parts of an infusion system. When the connecting body is connected to the base body, the connecting needle pierces the septum, so that the internal fluid channel of the connecting body is connected fluidically to the cannula by way of the connecting needle and an internal fluid channel of the connecting body. The connecting body can be separated from the base body and repeatedly connected to the base body. Each time the connection is established, the connecting needle pierces the septum. The septum has the property of hermetically sealing off the cannula from the outside when the connecting needle is withdrawn from the septum upon release of the connection between the base body and the connecting body.